Isabelle Cornaro’s series of ten wall paintings Reproductions are based on her 16mm movie Floues et Colorées (Hazy and Colorful). In the film, Cornaro documents the quick and spontaneous execution of ten small spray painted works from the viewpoint of the artist. Reproductions are then the enlarged versions of the paintings within the film with variable dimensions that are based on the size of the walls on which the works are realized. Playing with the idea of the autonomy of an artwork, Cornaro’s use of remediation calls attention to the act of painting as an attempt to reproduce something which already exists but in another shape and medium: a film of a painting and a painting of a film.

The works also call to mind the early films of innovator Oskar Fischingers, who famously paired moving shapes and forms with the contemporary music of the day creating a harmonious interplay of sounds and abstract visuals. These films, often referred to as “optical poems” referenced landscapes and monochromes, abstractions and geometry, in many of the same ways Cornaro’s films reference these same typologies of painting.

Born in 1974 in France, Isabelle Cornaro lives and works in Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include LAXART, Los Angeles, USA (2014), Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland 2013, Le Magasin (2012), FRAC (Regional Fund for Contemporary Art) Aquitaine, France (2012), Le Collège des Bernardins, Paris (2011), 1m3, Lausanne (2011), Centre d’Art Contemporain de Troyes, Troyes (2010), Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2009), Recent group shows include ICA, Biennale of Moving Image, Fetish and Figure, London, UK (2013), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Figure 2: natura morta, Rome, Italy (2013), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Decorum, Paris, France (2013), Intense Proximité/y, Paris Triennale, Palais de Tokyo (2012), Un’espressione geografica, Fondazione Sandretto, Turin (2011), Vide-Poche, Sculpture Center, New-York (2011), Projection, Centre Pompidou (2011), Paris, Sharjah Biennale, UAE (2011), Unto This Last, Raven Row, London (2010), The square, the Line and the Light, Tate Modern, London (2010)